Latest News
Using ‘coke’ to reduce CO2 emissions from steelmaking
Liberty Steel UK (LSUK; London; www.libertysteelgroup.com) has completed trials of ecoke — a sustainable new raw material that can replace anthracite, the main source of charge carbon used in the electric-arc furnace (EAF) of steelmaking, and reduce steel’s carbon footprint…
Scaling Up Hydrogenation Processes for Biomass Conversion
When scaling up new processes involving complex feedstocks, such as biomass, well-defined mixing is key. Guidelines presented here will help to efficiently move biomass hydrogenation reactions from the laboratory to commercial-scale operations One of the most promising pathways to biomass-based,…
Level Measurement & Control
A new level detector for multiphase applications Multiphase level measurements exist throughout chemical process industries (CPI). They are especially significant in the oil-and-gas and petrochemical sectors due to the value derived from effectively separating water and hydrocarbons. While level instrumentation…
Quantitative microbial monitoring for corrosion-relevant organisms
LuminUltra Technologies Ltd. (Fredericton, N.B., Canada; www.luminultra.com) recently launched a suite of DNA-based monitoring tools specifically designed to address organisms linked to microbiologically influenced corrosion (MIC). The collection enables industrial users to collect, prepare and test samples for a range…
Pump Troubleshooting Using Video Analysis
By allowing maintenance professionals to visualize vibration on entire pump systems, video vibration analysis and motion magnification can help to rapidly diagnose vibration issues Video vibration analysis, and motion magnification in particular, is democratizing complex system-level vibration testing by making…
Simultaneous Pump and System Sizing
Flow analysis can aid in simultaneously sizing pumps and associated piping systems. The concurrent sizing can reduce wasted energy and improve pump reliability In the chemical process industries (CPI), a variety of incredible process-simulation tools are available to provide greater…
Facts At Your Fingertips: Liquid-Liquid Extraction Basics
Liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) is a separation technique that exploits differences in the relative solubility of compounds of interest (the solute) in two immiscible liquids — most often an aqueous phase and an organic solvent. This one-page reference reviews basic information…
New Applications for Spiral-Tube Heat Exchangers
A decades-old, yet less well-known type of heat exchanger offers advantages for new and emerging applications Spiral-tube or helically-coiled heat exchangers have been around for decades addressing sample cooling, mechanical seal cooling, vent condensers, vaporization and general heating or cooling…
Chem Chronicles: Discovery and Re-discovery of Mechanochemistry
A reclusive expert of 19th-century photography laid the foundation for mechanochemistry, a once-ignored field that is re-emerging in ‘green chemistry’ applications For decades in the late 1800s, Carey Lea had been fascinated by the chemistry of photography, and had studied…
New versions available in this line of Ethernet switches
The Scalance XC-/XR-300 (photo) series of Industrial Ethernet switches has been upgraded with a higher port density, which allows many devices to be connected within large network infrastructures. Thanks to their high-bandwidth ports (up to 10 Gbit/s), the new models…